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The Deserved Downfall of Pirate Software
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pirate software will go down in history
as one of the most spectacular downfalls
the internet has ever seen. His Twitch
viewership is a third of what it used to
be. He's losing tens of thousands of
subscribers on YouTube every day. And
worst of all, he's become the LOL of the
internet with millions of people raking
him over the coals for everything he
says or does. And at this point, he has
no one to blame but himself. I cannot
believe his ego. His ego is so out of
control. I feel like he's only a week or
two away from exclusively referring to
himself in third person like Stone Cold
Steve Austin. And that's the truth cuz
Pirates Offear said so. So like that.
It's crazy. He could have avoided this
entire controversy with just three
words. I was wrong. But his ego and
arrogance got in the way of him
admitting fault, turning him from a
beloved and respected figure to one of
the most hated personalities on the
internet. All in a matter of days. Hi,
I'm the internet anarchist. I create
weekly YouTube documentaries. And today
we're taking a look at how you've
watched multiple of my videos and aren't
yet subscribed. Just kidding. We're
taking a look at the deserved downfall
of Pirate Software, his monumental fall
from grace, and how even after losing
everything, he's continuing to make the
situation worse for himself.
>> I'm going to be honest with you. I hope
that your initiative gets everything you
asked for, but nothing you wanted.
However, to fully grasp why the internet
is so mad at Pirate Software, we have to
understand what made him popular in the
first place. Jason Hull, better known as
Thor, originally started his career back
in 2004 as a game developer for
Blizzard, the company that made titles
like World of Warcraft and Overwatch.
After leaving his job at Blizzard, he
worked at Amazon Studio for a while
before quitting from there as well and
becoming a hacker for the US government.
So after that, I ended up going to work
for the United States Department of
Energy because I'm a hacker, offensive
security guy, and I hacked power plants
for the federal government.
>> But after a year of doing his job, he
resigned from there as well and started
working full-time on his indie game RPG
named Heartbound in 2017. He also
started doing daily live streams under
the name of his studio, Pirate Software,
showcasing his game development process
on Twitch. However, while Heartbound saw
some success in its early days, even
getting played by Jack Septicai at one
point, he was still relatively unknown
on the internet. But then, in 2022, he
made a small decision that would end up
changing his life forever. On January
17th, 2022, Thor posted his first short
video on YouTube titled Imposter
Syndrome. It was a clip from one of his
Twitch streams where he gave valuable
advice to an inexperienced developer.
I don't wish to fail myself because I'm
terrified of actually releasing
something to the world I've worked on
for over 3 years. Dear God, I am so
terrified. Hey, Thornstar. That feeling
never goes away. It never does. I am
constantly afraid to release every
single piece of content I ever work on
on this game. I am constantly afraid to
get onto stream and like not be, you
know, whatever it is that people expect
me to be. I am constantly afraid that
I'm going to create content that no one
wants to hang out with, that no one
wants to look at, no one wants to care
about. And that's just how that is. The
thing is is you can't stop. You
shouldn't stop. This ended up being a
bigger success than he could have ever
imagined, amassing over 850,000 views to
date. More importantly, this short
became a fantastic first impression for
all these new viewers who now saw him as
someone exceptionally wise and
intelligent. After seeing the potential
of short form content, Thor went allin
on this new format and started posting
shorts almost daily. And it wasn't long
before they were picked up by the
YouTube algorithm. As a result, Thor
became a regular presence on the YouTube
homepage for anyone even slightly
interested in game development, bringing
in millions of new viewers almost
overnight. People also loved almost
everything about his content from his
behind the curtain knowledge of game development.
development.
>> Most publishers want 30 to 70% of your
income from your game. 30 to 70%. Some
of them want 100% upfront until they
recoup their costs of marketing your game.
game.
>> And random tips and tricks. Take your
mouse and you put your mouse inside of
MS Paint and then you hold spacebar and
then you use the arrow keys. You can
draw like an sketch
>> to his odd and often amusing opinions.
They mixed Dr. Pepper and beans.
They mixed Dr. Pepper and beans. Do they
taste like Dr. Pepper? Hell yeah, they
do. And they're amazing. They are
delicious. As a fan comment under one of
his first YouTube streams states, Thor,
wow, first I've heard of you was
yesterday from the shorts. You were
everything I've been looking for in
terms of knowledgeable gamedev,
storyteller, and straightup kind human.
Keep it up, badass. The popularity of
his content on YouTube also translated
into his Twitch viewership, skyrocketing
past any expectations he might have had.
It reached a point where he broke the
Twitch hype train record four different
times and gained over 80,000 paid
subscribers on the platform. By 2024,
Thor's career had reached an all-time
high. Millions of fans eagerly consumed
everything he released, and the vast
majority held him in very high regard.
As a thankful viewer puts it, "This is
the most motivating and helpful
individual I've found in the game dev
space." And that's saying quite a lot as
most devs are so helpful and
encouraging. This man makes me feel like
my dreams are within my grasp, and
that's so rare to find. He was on track
to become one of the legendary figures
of online gaming, right alongside the
likes of Jack SeptiCai and Markiplier.
But then 2025 rolled around and a single
live stream nearly shattered the trust
and support thorough spent years building.
building.
>> I didn't play well. Other people in the
group didn't play well. They pinned it
on me. That's it. There was there was
one of the players that was very vocal
about saying it was all my fault and
then the rest of the community rallied
around it and now it's become a content
play for people to pick at me and that's
kind of it. It all started on January
12th, 2025 when Thor decided to stream a
hardcore World of Warcraft raid with
other streamers and veteran players. At
one point during the raid, the situation
became dire and instead of helping his
teammates in any way, Thor decided to
run away. This resulted in two other
players characters dying, which for
those of you who aren't familiar with
World of Warcraft hardcore, this means
that those characters were now lost
forever. The players would have to grind
the game for weeks to get back to the
same level again. But rather than
admitting fault or even showing remorse,
Thor decided to be arrogant about it and
put all the blame on others.
>> Just you're angry right now. Of course I don't.
don't.
>> You overpulled two packs. You overpulled
two packs and a boss. I had 1,400 mana
left. I had to spend all of that mana to
try and put it on Blizzard to save you
guys in the first place. And nothing
left. You weren't paying attention to
party resources. You overpulled. and you
weren't paying attention to where the
boss was. That's not on me.
>> This showed the egotistical side of Thor
that admittedly was already present in
his content.
>> It's [ __ ] Not only do I not want to
back this, I'm going to actively tell
people not to. That is awful. That is a
horrible goddamn direction.
>> But his fans didn't pay much attention
to it since till this point Thor was
seen as a passionate, talented developer
who genuinely cared about the gaming
community. So, his occasional cockiness
was written off as confidence rather
than a red flag. However, even after
getting called out by other streamers,
>> what the hell, man? Why not just apologize?
apologize?
>> Like I said, huge pirate fan. Love the
content. This is not the look.
>> Thor did not budge and even doubled down.
down.
>> Wants me to sit down, gravel on my
knees, and be like, "I'm so sorry, Mr.
Yamato. It was all my fault, the mage. I
won't do it again. I'm so sorry that
that tank overpulled. Two packs and a
boss. Oh man, I Oh god. Next time I'll
save you from the big mean two packs and
a boss that that tank pulled. Are you
kidding me, dude?
>> This incident put his behavior into a
completely different light. While this
controversy faded away in a few weeks,
it formed the first Krakenth Thor's
impeccable online reputation, and it's
only been downhill from there. But to
fully understand the controversy that's
killing Thor's career, we have to go
back in time to the end of 2023. On
December 14th, 2023, Ubisoft announced
that it would be shutting down the
servers for its multiplayer racing game
called The Crew in April of 2024.
However, unlike many other multiplayer
games where an internet connection is
only needed for playing against others
online, The Crew required players to be
online at all times. In other words,
Ubisoft shutting down the servers meant
that players would no longer be able to
access the game they paid for. This also
meant losing access to the game
singleplayer campaign, which should have
been fully offline. This sparked intense
online backlash as players felt like
they were being robbed of the game they
paid for with their hard-earned money.
What made the situation even worse was
that this wasn't the first game to shut
down like this, and it was clear it
wouldn't be the last. So to fight back
against greedy publishers, Ross from
Accursed Farms spent months creating a
potential solution. But now we have a
new option proposing new law and for the
entire European Union. It took months to
get put together and processed, but now
we have a European citizens initiative
devoted to halting the destruction of
video games. You can read it yourself.
This would require publishers to leave
games they have sold to customers in a
working state at the time of shutdown
without requiring any further connection
to them or affiliated parties for the
games to function. This solution took
the form of a petition which unlike the
largely useless change.org petitions had
actual legal weight. If this petition
reached a million signatures, lawmakers
in the EU were legally required to
discuss the matter in an official
setting. And if passed, this new law
would require game makers to ensure that
their games are still playable after
they stop supporting them.
>> We're just trying to stop games from
being destroyed. That's it. So, we're
taking as narrow an approach as possible
that still solves the problem. If we get
enough signatures, then this goes before
the European Union to be considered as
new law.
>> This would be a net positive outcome for
gamers around the world. Unfortunately,
this initiative had one major weakness
right from the get-go, and that was
Ross' Reach. You see, his subscriber
count was just a third of the number of
signatures needed to make this a
success. And since he's based in the US,
most of these subs weren't allegible EU
citizens either. So, to counteract this
weakness, Ross called out other creators
and asked them to spread the word about
this initiative. He even made himself
available for any interviews or
follow-up discussions. If you're
watching this, you may be a critical
link in all this because you can tell
other YouTubers, streamers, etc. about
this initiative and maybe they'll pick
it up. Now, I'm offering myself for
interviews, publicity on this issue,
whatever, to almost anyone with a
European audience of some size.
>> And that's where Thor entered the
picture. He came across the Stop Killing
Games initiative in August of 2024. Now,
given his history of speaking in favor
of the gamers and developers and against
greedy publishers, people naturally
expected him to throw his full support
behind the campaign. However, this
couldn't have been further from the truth.
truth.
>> Now, this is actually really dumb. It's
used car salesman garbage. This is
it's not only do I not want to back
this, I'm going to actively tell people
not to. Not only did he dislike the idea
of stop killing games, his choice of
words was harsh to say the least.
>> That is awful. That is a horrible god
direction. That's that's awful, dude.
No. Eat my entire that the level of
stupid that I just had to receive was
like sitting on Twitter for 12 hours.
This sucks. That's a really stupid move.
That's an incredibly stupid move. I
think this is
this is complete garbage. All of this
can eat that. I dropped the mask
entirely. I have no qualms about that.
They can eat my entire
>> This was a shock to many of his viewers.
So Thor published two full videos to
clarify his point of view further. And
while these videos saw plenty of push
back from fans who are flabbergasted by
his decision to oppose what they saw as
something good, it ultimately resulted
in the stop killing games movement
receiving significantly less support
than it would have if Thor supported it
as well. You have to remember that this
was all before the World of Warcraft
hardcore fiasco. Back then, the broader
gaming community still viewed Thor as a
beacon of insight and authority in game
development. Ross tried to combat the
negative reception by publishing a FAQ
video to clear any misconceptions about
stop Killing Games. Unfortunately, this
wasn't as effective as he would have
liked, resulting in Stop Killing Games
losing all momentum and essentially
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That being said, let's get back into the
video. For the next 10 months, it looked
like despite Ross' good intentions, his
initiative was doomed to fail
spectacularly. But then he did something
that no one saw coming. On June 22nd,
2025, Ross uploaded an hour-ong video
titled The End of Stop Killing Games,
talking about the disappointing state of
the petition. The European Citizens
Initiative failing kind of stings.
Again, this one is crazy powerful, but
the hurdle we just couldn't get past was
that it requires 1 million signatures
from citizens of EU countries, and we've
only made it just under halfway. And
after thanking many of the creators that
voiced their support for their campaign,
he shifted his focus towards the
elephant in the room, the one creator
whose coverage was straight up poisonous
for the initiative. Thor, this video
came out right as we were building
momentum. Then, except for one boost in
Germany, the signature started drying up
like clockwork.
>> Ross also revealed why he didn't make a
direct response to Thor until now. This
put me in kind of a no-win scenario,
too, because if I ignored it, then a lot
of people were going to get misinformed
about the campaign. But if I did a
response video, which is not something I
wanted to do anyway, then it might look
like drama farming, which could
understandably turn off a lot of people
from the campaign because it's not about
that at all. So, I quickly made this
video trying to clear up all
misconceptions and concerns about the
initiative with timestamps for
everyone's questions, hoping the truth
would eventually come out. I can see now
that was a mistake. I should have just
embraced the drama.
>> At this point, stop Killing Games was
already on track to be a failure. So,
this video was one last push from Ross
to make a difference. Surprisingly, this
worked better than anyone could have
ever expected. And one big reason for
that was what Ross revealed about Thor.
Because as it turned out, Thor
misunderstood and misrepresented the
whole thing.
>> If you try to tell me that every studio
needs to run their live service game
indefinitely or not want to run run one
at all, then no one's going to run them.
>> Oh no.
He wheeled out that line about
publishers having to support the game
forever. He was literally watching the
video earlier where it says it won't do
that in big letters. That wasn't enough.
We just can't stop gamers from going
there even when we spell it out.
>> And Ross was having none of it.
>> This part hurts to see the biggest voice
on this issue get it wrong again and
again and again, then put that same
wrong information on blast to a far
bigger audience than we can reach. It
hurts. He doesn't get it. He doesn't
understand what we're asking for. He
even called out the clear contradiction
Thor made in his own argument just
seconds apart.
>> I think live service games getting
sunseted is fine. I've always thought
that and that's okay. There's nothing
wrong with that. There's nothing wrong
with that at all. I have no problems
with the end of a video game. See, I
wish he started his big YouTube video
with that message instead of deleting
it. Instead, he presented himself as
propreservation and not wanting the
medium to die out. It's incredibly
important to me that we keep making
games and that the next generation has
the tools to do so so that our medium
doesn't die out and it never will. And
that's the whole intention of all of
this. So, he doesn't want games to die
out except he's fine with that. I think
there's some cognitive dissonance going
on there.
>> This video showed that Thor's distaste
for the Stop Killing Games initiative is
based on complete misinterpretations,
which in turn called his credibility as
an experienced and knowledgeable
developer in question. However, before
Thor had even a chance to respond, Ross'
new video reached the one man who could
bring this issue to a mainstream
audience, Charlie.
>> And there is an initiative that has been
aiming to fight back against a lot of
these practices that I think really need
some big overhaul. Stop destroying
things that people have paid money to own.
own.
I think that is a very understandable,
very reasonable take, very agreeable.
and he called out Thor's incorrect
interpretation of the initiative as well.
well.
>> He didn't even get the cliffnotes
summary right. He missed all the QTE and
got the bad ending on understanding the
initiative from the jump here. Ross is
correct. This has nothing to do with
just singleplayer only games that
require an online connection that when
the online connection is severed, you
lose access to the game. Like yeah, that
is included in all of this, but that's
not like what the whole movement is
about. And for some reason, Pirate
Software is stunlocked on that, like
fixated as if that is the actual like
meat and potatoes of stop killing games.
They need to be more specific in their
language about it being single player,
always online connectivity games when
that's just not what it's about. Like
they're not being specific about that
because that is not what they are
specifically targeting. This video from
Charlie was a godsend for Stop Killing
Games as it exposed the idea to over 3.4
million people. More importantly, it
highlighted Thor's flawed take and the
damage it did to an otherwise positive
movement. Following Charlie's video,
several other creators also came
forwards with their support for the
initiative, including Jack SeptiCai, the
ActMan, PewDiePie, and many more. The
story was also picked up by countless
commentary YouTubers, resulting in Thor
once again receiving push back for his
opposition of Stop Killing Games. But
unlike last time where it sort of
fizzled out within weeks, the backlash
wasn't showing any signs of slowing
down. He started losing subscribers and
followers across all platforms. And
everything he did online got flooded
with dislikes and angry comments like
essentially, you will earn nothing and
be happy. I reject that. Achievement
unlocked. being wrong on all levels.
Many of these commenters were even his
own loyal fans who now saw him as a
corporate shill more than a genuinely
well-intentioned developer. As a casual
follower ever since the beta release of
Heartbound, this is extremely
disappointing to watch. The backlash was
so overwhelming that it seems like
nothing he said could soften the blow or
calm the outrage. However, that's not
true. He still had a chance to retain
some of the trust his viewers had put in
him. All he had to do was admit fault,
apologize, and support the stop killing
games initiative. But knowing Thor, that
was never going to happen, just as he
did after the hardcore World of Warcraft
incident, Thor decided to double down
here as well and stick to his stance
regardless of how wrong he was. Stating
for those that will scream his doubling
down, yes, I well am. I give about this
initiative and what it means for games
developers and players in the future.
Near the end of this tweet, he also
stated, "Just because I don't support
this doesn't mean you should blindly
follow me in that just because I said
pretty words on the internet, you also
shouldn't blindly bash me because some
other creator said to watch the videos I
put out, read the initiative, decide for
yourself, apply critical thinking, and
don't outsource it to others, completely
disregarding the responsibility he had
as a creator that millions looked up to
at one point. Not to mention, this also
went against what he said in his initial
reaction. This is it's not only do I not
want to back this, I'm going to actively
tell people not to.
>> This attitude only angered the internet
more, forcing him to step away from
Off-Brand Games, the game studio Lewig
founded, with his friends. However, Thor
couldn't help but turn this into a
source of embarrassment as well. You
see, he announced his leave in a tweet
reading, "I'm no longer working at
Off-brand Games. People were attacking
all of the games we were publishing and
trying to mass review bomb them. You can
dislike the things I say, but this kind
of behavior is unhinged. But when people
checked the games published by Off-Brand
Games, they didn't find a noticeable
uptick in negative reviews. In other
words, Thor straight up lied about his
reasoning for leaving the studio. He
could have simply been honest and
admitted that he was stepping away to
prevent any backlash from hitting the
studio, which had nothing to do with his
personal opinions, but his ego wouldn't
let him. Instead, he chose to lie and
ended up getting caught red-handed. That
said, all the hate towards Thor did have
the positive effect of making the stop
killing games movement go viral. This
has resulted in it not only reaching its
goal within days, but shooting past it
with over 200,000 more at the time of
writing. Thor, however, still cannot
admit defeat. After the petition reached
its goal, he made a tweet that contained
a mixture of denial and boasting at the
same time, stating, "The most
interesting narrative is that my video
somehow killed the initiative." This
graph showed that the initiative already
had a downward trend in interest when my
videos dropped. My videos do not seem to
have had any impact on the movement at
all, making me the villain did though.
Best of luck with your next steps. And
as expected from him at this point, he
was completely wrong once again. The
graph he shared showed the lifetime
signatures for the petition. If we zoom
into the first two months instead, we
can clearly see the momentum fall off a
cliff. The second store reacted to Stop
Killing Games on his stream. As for his
line about becoming the quote villain,
Charlie had some necessary feedback on that.
that.
>> I cannot believe his ego. His ego is so
out of control. I feel like he's only a
week or two away from exclusively
referring to himself in third person
like stone cold [ __ ] Steve Austin.
And that's the truth cuz Pirate Software
said so. So like that. It's crazy how
he's responded. The smuggness is nails
on a chalkboard. It just makes you feel
icky listening to it. Even when he's
trying to back down, he can't help but
create more drama.
>> I have been called a rap corporate plant
degenerate narcissist, Nepo baby, and
many other names. And they attacked all
the accomplishments over my life despite
physical evidence to prove to the
contrary. And they also went after every
job I ever held uh trying to say that I
never worked them or if I did work them
that I never deserved them. So, I'm
going to be honest with you. I hope that
your initiative gets everything you
asked for, but nothing you wanted.
effectively saying that what Stop
Killing Games is asking for is not what
gamers want. And somehow he's the only
one who knows this. Which makes sense
when you consider the fact that even Dr.
K, a trained psychologist, recognized
Thor as a highly arrogant person.
>> I think sometimes the things that I talk
about in regards to those types of
things is misconstrued as arrogance or
boasting when in reality I'm just trying
to give context.
>> So that is the problem right there. So I
want you to listen to this phrase. Yeah,
>> this gets misconstrued in as arrogance,
but in reality it's this.
>> That is the most arrogant statement on
the planet, bro.
>> Like, tell me I'm wrong.
>> Okay, I don't see it that way. But all right,
right,
>> at the end of the day, Thor is simply
too far gone. He had months to set
things right, but he didn't because in
his mind, he could never be wrong. Now
that egotistical viewpoint has become
the reason for his disastrous yet
deserved downfall, leaving him with two
options for the future. He can still
admit that he was wrong and apologize.
This wouldn't stop the backlash anytime
soon. But some people will recognize his
attempt to correct his mistake and start
supporting him again, allowing him to
eventually build a solid fan base once
again. or he can continue down the path
he's already going, stay firm on his
stance, and eventually turn into the
perpetual loal of the internet, where
the only time someone remembers him is
to make fun of him. Of course, he could
also try to make a comeback in the
future and fail miserably, just like the
Liver King. Click the video on screen to
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